Boat on The River

Nong Khiaw Travel Blog

Our minivan and guide arrive at 8am but we are quicky rescheduled to 8:30. We have booked a trip to Muang Ngoi as this looked to me almost the same price as arranging everything ourselves, though we soon begin to feel this is a mistake. The guide (Kam Pha) is a good guy and a good enough guide to have filled a book of references from other travellers. There are 3 others in the minivan also travelling to Muang Ngoi, though we lose one guy when we stop for at Nong Khiaw. At Nong Khiaw wait for the "slow" boat up the river. The boats obviously run to some form of schedule as the next boat is not until 2pm and we have almost 2 hours to wait.

Nong Khiaw

The LP seems to like Nong Khiaw but I can't really see why, it seems little more than a large village with a boat ramp, though the surrounding hill scenery is pretty impressive. When 2pm finally arrives we squeese into the boat for the 1 hour trip upstream. We have come a long way from the Mekong but the river here is still wide and flows strongly. Though the boat is not particularly comfortable and if you sit in the back also noisy (tip - try to sit in the front away from the engine) the trip is very enjoyable. The scenery is fantastic and the journey full of interest; villagers fishing, buffalo resting in the river and plenty of other boats not to mention a little excitment as we go through the rapids. Muang Ngoi is a fair sized village but accessible only by boat; it has plenty of guest houses but there is no sense of it being touristy. Kam Pha selects the Riverside Guest house and we settle in on the balcony overlooking the river with a beerlao to watch the sunset.